


Fracturing

by Starlithorizon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlithorizon/pseuds/Starlithorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wasn't the only one watching as Sherlock fell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fracturing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm most fond of the idea that Mycroft knew that Sherlock had faked his death all along. _However_ , I also loved the idea of studying this potentially emotional side of the British Government. No matter how tumultuous the Holmes relationship, it certainly couldn't be easy to live with the knowledge that Mycroft was at least partly responsible.

Mycroft was unabashedly reliant upon CCTVs to monitor his little brother. He watched Sherlock rage through the streets of London. He watched those few people like planets round the sun. First DI Lestrade, then Miss Hooper, then Mrs Hudson, and finally Dr Watson. His eyes roved constantly and continually over the screens housing his brother and his solar system. Sherlock would never accept any outright help, but the tiny little things Mycroft did for him (like funneling money into his bank account and allowing him extraordinary security breaches and striving to destroy the madman that wanted _him_ destroyed) were allowed. It eased Mycroft's persistent panic just enough.

But then, that rainy June morning dripped into existence so slowly and horrifically and innocuously. Myrcoft was a bit bleary and rumpled from watching the feeds all night, throat hoarse from swallowing screams.

When Sherlock stepped onto that ledge the second time...

Mycroft didn't cry or scream or do anything at all when his brother held out his arms like wings and dropped. He didn't blink when the youngest Holmes hit the wet pavement with what he imagined was a wet crack. He didn't blink for a distressingly long time. He didn't breathe. He didn't move. He was fairly certain his heart didn't pump. He was utterly and horribly and absolutely still.

Someone in the office, tasked with watching that area of London, had dispatched medical personnel the first time Sherlock perched on that ledge. Now, they were flocking around him, his body, dear God, his _corpse_ like carrion while John Watson lurched forward and reached out and fell to his knees. John was fracturing in ways that Mycroft wasn't able to just yet.

Sherlock's body was flopped limply onto a gurney, diluted blood seeping into viciously white linen.

The British Government blinked slowly for the first time in what felt like decades. He turned sharply on the heel of his fine Italian wingtip shoe and left the office with his head tilted up and his shoulders loosely sloping down. He slid into a car purring at the kerb and forced his lungs to expand and contract and inhale and exhale. He willed his heart to beat and his blood to pump and his mind to rest blankly in his skull.

He got out of the car slowly, unlocking the door to his flat and laying his keys gently in the bowl on the table in the foyer. He rested his umbrella in the stand, drifted up the stairs to his bedroom, and slumped heavily on the end of his bed.

His elbows jabbed into his thighs and his face fell into his hands and he shattered like a skull upon impact. Mycroft sobbed, jagged shards of sorrow driving into his heart and his lungs and his throat, and God how he ached.

He had failed his brother. He had failed utterly and completely and now he was—

Sherlock was dead.

The elder Holmes cried and swore and beat his fists against furniture and limbs and empty space. He mourned, he grieved, he begged and screamed and disintegrated to subatomic particles.

He had failed.

* * *

He walked into the Diogenes club the next afternoon, impeccable as ever, eyes cool and dry. A copy of _The Sun_ was folded and tucked neatly under his arm, quietly unfurled as he took his favoured chair.

The headline screamed at him, accusing him in precisely the way Sherlock was now unable to. It filled him with regret, and _so much guilt_. John Watson had torn into him on Sherlock's last night, and—

He'd never get to apologise to his little brother. When he finished the terrible, sensationalised article, he folded the paper back up and set it lightly on the table at his side, inhaling sharply and fracturing further still.

* * *

The funeral was small and quiet, sun shining weakly through the clouds. It was a closed casket, a single asphodel resting on the lid. Bodies shuffled uncertainly as the officiant read out "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep". Mycroft cast quick, guilty glances at Doctor Watson. The soldier had returned, posture impeccable and hands curled tightly at his sides.

He didn't stay for the burial.

* * *

It had been two years of blank, empty horror and misery and aching. Two long years of guilt and mental mutilation. Two years of pouring glasses of expensive Scotch just to watch the way the light played against the golden liquid and the crystal glass.

He was in the office in his flat, toes curling against the lush Turkish rug. Hands reached out to take the decanter and tumbler, but a noise halted his movements.

"M-Mycroft."

And the brother was turning to face a voice long dead, and there he was, _there he was_. Mycroft lifted a hand to the cool nylon of his jacket, just to be sure. Just to be certain that this wasn't—

" _Sherlock_."

The younger brother was pulled into a crushing, grasping, begging embrace. Mycroft felt uncertain hands come to rest between his shoulder blades. After a moment, fingers curled inward, fisting the fabric loose at Mycroft's back. A muted, stilted, unsteady sob sounded from one mouth, though it didn't matter which. Dreaming fingers fluttered against dark curls, last seen matted with blood and slightly caved in.

He'd identified the body. It had been Sherlock. It had been _him_.

"Mummy is going to be _furious_ ," Mycroft gasped against Sherlock's neck, and he felt a small smile curling against his shoulder.

Sherlock was alive. Sherlock was alive and here and real and his brother wasn't dead.

* * *

Mycroft set up a room, just in case, while Sherlock went to reunite with the good doctor. The bloodied woolen coat, long since laundered and kept in the hall closet, was now draped loosely over the resurrected brother's shoulders. The streets of London were once again home to the detective's sure feet.

Sherlock was alive.

He was alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's also discuss the though of Sherlock going to Mycroft first (before Molly, before John, before _anyone_ ) is the best.  
> Also, in the language of flowers, asphodel means "my regrets follow you to the grave."  
> Un-beta'd, un-Brit-picked, as always.


End file.
